A British editor threatened with expulsion from the Bahamas has finally been granted a work permit.

The government’s decision to grant a one-year permit to John Marquis, managing editor of The Tribune, ends a five-month face-off between three leading politicians and the controversial editor.

The politicians, led by foreign minister Fred Mitchell, said the editor should be thrown out of the country because of what they regarded as his insulting comments about government politicians.

John, who is a former West country newspaper editor and London sports editor, claimed he was being victimised for a series of hard-hitting articles he wrote against the government earlier this year.

Eventually, the government announced it had deferred his work permit pending an inquiry into The Tribune’s arrangements for replacing him with a Bahamian, but changed its mind following a Labour Department investigation.

The decision was cause for a treble celebration for the 62-year-old editor.

This week his book, Blood and Fire, published last Christmas, was named as a Caribbean bestseller only three weeks after being named a bestselling mystery on Amazon Canada.

And he gave Reuters a world exclusive with his tip-off about actress Anna Nicole Smith, whose son Daniel died suddenly at her bedside in a Nassau hospital only three days after she had given birth to a daughter.